One defeated, both depleted: Thiem inches past Zverev in US Open epic

We were free. Our parents had gone to South America for three weeks. I was 12 years old, my older brother 16. By the time the housekeeper came, seven days after our moment of liberation, the house was strewn with pizza boxes, sandwich wrappers, unopened mail, laundry galore, dirty dishes, unfolded sheets, towels on bathroom floors. We were kids. What did we know about how to smoothly run a house?

That was the memory that surfaced tonight as I watched Dominic Thiem and Alexander Zverev fight and struggle through their nerves in search of a first Grand Slam singles title. Big daddies Roger and Rafa had long announced they wouldn’t be around. Daddy Novak was surprisingly expelled. So had come the children’s opening. Amid excessive splotchy tennis from each, Thiem had grabbed it—barely—winning 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (6). Not since Pancho Gonzales in 1949 had someone rallied from two sets to love down to win the US men’s singles title.

It’s nice to see a new Slam winner. As I mentioned before the tournament started, there will be no downward evaluation, no asterisk alongside Thiem’s name. If anything, perhaps an extra gold star for winning the US Open amid so much stress. Recall that only a few months ago, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center had served as a makeshift hospital to treat patients of a global virus that as yet has no cure.

Yet amid both the global situation and the tennis opportunity, who can blame Thiem and Zverev for each having moments of extreme tightness? Thiem, the favorite, went down two sets to love in just over an hour; the snap, crackle and pop that make him so appealing largely absent. As Thiem noted, the experience of having played three Grand Slam finals, compared to none for Zverev, might well have been less theoretical asset, more practical liability.

Would fans have changed the outcome of this contest? Would Thiem have had such a lousy start? (Getty Images)

“I think it didn't help me at all because I was so tight in the beginning,” said Thiem. “Maybe it was not even good that I played in previous major finals. I mean, I wanted this title so much, and of course there was also in my head that if I lose this one, it's 0-4.

“It's always in your head. Is this chance ever coming back again? This, that, all these thoughts, which are not great to play your best tennis, to play free. That's what exactly happened in the beginning. Luckily then things changed in the third set. At the end was complete open match, 50/50.”

The New York bubble, three weeks long when you factored in the relocated Cincinnati event, was about to close shop and send its residents back into the world.  Perhaps the enormity of it all coming to a head—the travel, the tests, the isolation, the lack of crowd engagement, the threat posed by an incurable virus—had also caught up with Thiem and Zverev.

There was a nice symmetry to the fact that these two had also joined Djokovic and Federer in the final four of the most recent Grand Slam, the Australian Open, played seemingly a million years ago in January. Each has been touted as a future Grand Slam champion. While Thiem has shown steady upward progress, Zverev’s path has been more up-and-down. Not until this year in Melbourne did he at last reach a Grand Slam semi. This summer, Zverev began to work with grinder par excellence David Ferrer, work that paid off richly in New York, most notably when Zverev rallied from two sets to love down in the semis to beat another steady Spaniard, Pablo Carreno Busta.

“I was super close to being a Grand Slam champion,” said Zverev. “I was a few games away, maybe a few points away.”

After five sets and four hours, Thiem and Zverev had nothing left to give. (AP Photo)

In the first two sets, Zverev, he of the yippy serve and questionable forehand, had done just enough to build a lead. Yet that might well have been fool’s gold, great results masquerading the quality of the tennis. For mostly, the flow of it all was patchy, chock full of nervousness that proved exceptionally draining. This in time implicated fitness, Thiem in that decisive tiebreaker cramping and limited to a slice backhand. Zverev too began to cramp at that stage. Take into account just how many matches a pro typically has played by the time the US Open starts. But this year, five months of exile. Nothing is quite the same as raw competition.

That one man had to lose spoke to the power and binary cruelty of tennis. Zverev revealed it most of all when he came into his press conference, clearly saddened by coming so close.

“The match turned when he broke me I think for the first time in the third set,” said Zverev. “I think he started playing much better and I started playing much worse. That's when the match turned. But I still had plenty of chances after that.”

Even more thoughtful was the vulnerability Zverev revealed when asked what positives he could take away from this evening’s match. Said an obviously crushed Zverev, “That question is probably two, three days too early to ask right now.”

As we look forward, who can say what is it come for each of these two contenders?  Everyone was well aware that on this occasion, earning a first major hardly opened the door for a second, what with the Europe-based Nadal hungry for clay; the banished Djokovic also keen for Paris and, soon enough, his pet Slam, the Australian. Then there was Federer, lying in wait for Wimbledon.

“We both didn't face one of the big three, so I guess that was in the back of the head for both of us,” said Thiem. “That's why we were on nerves. Was a very good chance for the both of us.”

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Said Zverev, “I don't think it's my last chance. I do believe that I will be a Grand Slam champion at some point.”

I don’t know what the housekeeper told my parents, but never again did they leave us alone for so long. On the other hand, Thiem’s effort over the last two weeks—particularly his comeback tonight from two sets to love and a break down—showed how good he is at cleaning up an unruly home.

“Well, it doesn't matter at the end who did I beat or which tournament it is,” said Thiem. “I mean, I just won a major and it's just amazing.”